I recently spent an afternoon at an Avaya analyst event. While most of the content was wrapped in an NDA (interesting communication strategy, that -- assemble analysts, tell them your story, and then warn them not to repeat it...), I am able to share some of the interesting thoughts contained in the section focused on "CEBP" -- communications-enabled business processes.

In his presentation, Amir Hameed, director of software and application sales for Avaya Canada, offered several definitions of CEBP. The one that seemed to be the most apt description of its capabilities and potential states that CEBP "provides business processes and applications with the ability to sense events, respond, and track real-time multi-channel communications between decision makers."

Several of the other observations offered by Mr. Hameed provide additional insight into how this objective is accomplished. The core idea is to integrate communications capabilities into software-enabled business processes, by providing applications with "the ability to initiate real-time communications." The notion is that by combining integrated communications functionality with the insights that can be gained through use of enterprise software, organizations will gain the ability to have their systems "sense events, manage communications and track activity to closure."

If all of this sounds kind of futuristic, it's because it is -- this approach to technology won't be in widespread use until unified communications is widely deployed, and application vendors have integrated its capabilities within their systems, and users have adopted these new systems as replacements to existing ERP, supply chain, and other financial and logistic applications. But if it won't be common for some time to come, it is at least becoming conceivable today -- and "conceivable" is an important step towards finding the environments that will see enough benefit in these capabilities to insist on integrating CEBP features into their organizational infrastructures.

Initially posted by Michael O'Neil on IT in Canada. Reposted via agreement with IT in Canada.